


Beginnings

by kickpuncher



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 20:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickpuncher/pseuds/kickpuncher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the Doctor's beginnings begin explosively. When he thinks about it, this still holds true for his newest companion. It’s just a bit more complicated and runs in two directions, or maybe four directions if you’re considering both their perspectives individually, which you might have to given the vastly differing levels of understanding they each had for their own inter-related personal histories on the multiple occasions when they met one another for the first time ever...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> I started a '30 days of drabbles'-type thing, but then the rest of them were non-fan fiction short stories. So here's the first one, with no related things due to come after!

Most of the Doctor's beginnings begin explosively. When he meets new people – _really_ meets them, _really_ gets to know them – it’s usually on the run from certain death. They’re forced together by necessity, they squabble, they get shot at and most likely imprisoned at some point, and then they come out of it as good friends who spend upwards of six months on fantastic adventures together. He can’t think of the last time he met someone he quite liked and it wasn’t immediately followed by some kind of horrible disaster.

When he thinks about it, this still holds true for his newest companion. It’s just a bit more complicated and runs in two directions, or maybe four directions if you’re considering both their perspectives individually, which you might have to given the vastly differing levels of understanding they each had for their own personal histories on the multiple occasions when met one another for the first time ever...

Time travel is a messy business. 

‘So come on then,’ River says, boisterous authority in her voice. ‘Tell me how we met from your point of view.’ 

They’re lying tangled together on a huge heap of cushions and blankets inside something that looks sort of like a bandstand, sheltered from the rain by a canopy stretched overhead. The planet is all dark blues and greens, forests rolling as far as the eye can see, misty mountains all around the horizon, orange lightning flickering prettily in the distance and a steady metallic pinging as heavy drops of water bounce off a collection of glittering saucepan-like objects carefully laid out for that purpose not far away. It’s a paradise planet – a holiday planet. Set aside and preserved, full of gentle natural beauty that’s been augmented with mod cons and wonderful comforts. Typically the Doctor avoids planets like these as though they’d catch his trousers on fire, but he has to admit that it’s sort of nice, with the right person. The right person in question has propped her shoes over the railing of the bandstand and is wearing his jacket like a badge of honour. Frankly he would have liked to have kept his jacket on himself, but he got the enormous blue faux-fur coat she was wearing in exchange so it's balanced out acceptably. 

Her hair is brushing the side of his face and their hands are clasped together somewhere beneath the mess of cushions. They lie in the pleasant warm fug of shared body heat in a cool place, and he likes being able to feel her pulse beneath his fingertips. He likes knowing that she is here, with him, in a place that’s safe and beautiful. She’s hell in high heels or any other kind of footwear and she can shoot your hat off at thirty paces, and he loves that fire and ferocity, he loves watching her fight and smirk and beguile (he shouldn’t really, but he really does). But when they’re alone and there’s no crisis, he feels a kind of peace he hasn’t felt in a very long time. She’s a person he doesn’t have to explain everything to because she already knows it, or she’s going to know it, or she will shortly have known it all along, or she never didn’t _not_ not know it but she couldn’t let on because that would muck up what was left of their time stream that wasn’t already mucked up. And what’s more, she has a way of completely drawing his attention when she’s around, partly because there’s always a distinct chance she’ll dive out of a skyscraper or something equally ridiculous, and partly because she’s just very, very good company. It stops the unpleasant memories creeping through his subconscious all the time. It’s nice. He likes that about her, about them being together. He can forget about the bad things and dwell in the moment, the moment which is nearly always a very good moment...

When she’s not asking questions like that one. 

‘Spoilers,’ he says softly. He lightly moves his fingers over her wrist and finds her heartbeat again, and tries to quell the memories he wishes he didn’t already have.


End file.
